The protests were reportedly the biggest since Fujimori assumed the presidency. The Miami Herald reported, "The peaceful overnight outpouring [on July 27] united workers, students, and Peruvians from all walks in a raucous, torchlit rally, marked by bottle rockets screaming over a downtown plaza and drums pounding loudly on the cool night air." Protests also took place in Arequipa, the country's second-largest city.

Capitalist opposition politician Alejandro Toledo headed the demonstrations, using them as a platform to call for new elections. Toledo ran for president against Fujimori in May. Although the pro-business policies of his "Peru Posible" party differed little from those of the incumbent, his campaign became a lightning rod for many seeking change. Unable to win a clear majority, Fujimori was forced to concede a runoff ballot. Toledo boycotted that election, alleging fraud, allowing Fujimori to win his third term unopposed in the electoral arena.

The regime mobilized 40,000 cops to counter the mass protests July 27 and 28, firing tear gas and live bullets and leaving up to 100 people wounded. Several government buildings burned to the ground, fatally entrapping at least five people.

Striking a defiant posture as the tear gas mixed with smoke in the streets of Lima, Fujimori proceeded with his swearing-in ceremony in the congressional palace, ignoring the walkout by opposition leaders. In his inauguration speech he claimed credit for defeating the Shining Path guerrilla insurgency and for the cessation of military hostilities between the governments of Peru and Ecuador. Many governments in Latin America demonstratively boycotted the inauguration to distance themselves from the tarnished figure. The U.S. government was represented by its ambassador in Lima.

Posturing as a friend of democracy, Washington endorsed a call by the Organization of American States, which it dominates, for Fujimori to publicly reverse some of his regime's most blatant restrictions on the judiciary, freedom of the press, and the electoral process. The rulers of the United States, the predominant power in Latin America, are worried about the instability in Peru as well as more broadly--in Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and beyond.

Washington, however, has no ready-made alternative to Fujimori at hand to keep a lid on the rising discontent among Peru's workers and farmers. In spite of occasional protests at his curtailment of democratic rights, the U.S. rulers have been more than happy to work with Fujimori as a protector of their interests. He has moved to open up Peru's markets to deeper imperialist penetration and cooperated with Washington's escalation of its military presence in the region, organized under the pretext of combating terrorism and the drug trade.  
 
Regime of social crisis
Fujimori's regime was the product of the sharp economic and social crisis in Peru. In the 1990 election campaign he ran on a platform of "honest government," in contrast to the discredited traditional capitalist parties. Presenting himself as a savior standing above class conflicts, he pledged to bring "peace" and stability by iron-fisted means when deemed necessary. His two promises were to end hyperinflation, which reached 7,600 percent, and to combat "terrorism"--targeting the Shining Path organization.

Shining Path is a Stalinist sect that during the 1980s won a degree of support in some of the most isolated and economically backward areas of the countryside. It offered to bring relief from economic desperation by battling the government through bombings, assassinations of hated figures, and other methods that relegated working people to passive spectators, at best, or that made them targets of their brutal polices if they got in the way.

Under the cover of his "antiterrorist" campaign against Shining Path, Fujimori expanded the use of executive power, gave the military a freer hand, and took aim at basic democratic rights.

In 1992, in the name of fighting government corruption and red tape, he staged a "self-coup," dissolving Congress and suspending the constitution. The army and rightist death squads waged terror against peasants. Unionists, left-wing political activists, and others were branded terrorists, dragged before "faceless" judges, and summarily sentenced with no right to confront accusers or cross-examine witnesses.

Fujimori's "shock therapy" economic policies prioritized debt payments to imperialist banks in order to qualify for more loans. Peru's foreign debt, however, stood at almost $26 billion in 1996--$4 billion more than in 1990.

The government passed other measures favoring big business, including laws that making it easier for employers to lay off workers, and excluding young workers from the social security system and eligibility for the minimum wage. By 1997, 173 of 183 state-run enterprises had been privatized.  
 
Decline of Shining Path
The regime dealt a deadly blow to Shining Path by going after its weak point--the central leadership. Once the sect's chief and cult figure, ex-philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán, was captured and paraded on television signing a humiliating "peace" agreement, the group shattered into pieces and, while still lingering on, has gone into decline.

Meanwhile, after a half decade of popularity, Fujimori's appeal began to wear thin as the living standards of working people and the middle classes continued to erode. Today, two-thirds of people of working age are unemployed or underemployed. Half the population lives under the official poverty line. Disease, illiteracy, and lack of decent housing afflict millions, with no change in sight.

These conditions have generated a gradual renewal of working-class confidence and combativity. On October 14, the construction workers union, teachers unions, and the General Confederation of Workers in Peru joined other organized workers in a national strike demanding jobs. The construction workers took action in January demanding a rise in benefits. Hundreds of landless families stepped up land occupations south of Lima and in the north.

The eruption of anger at Fujimori's third inauguration is further evidence of the exhaustion of his usefulness for the ruling classes. Washington hopes to work with him as long as it can, but the future is one of increasing turbulence and class struggle.